Phew. This was one of those weeks I spent in front of the computer — I owed the family a little time so I didn’t travel and instead stuck around and watched the scoreboard, live stats and listened to games.
Started my morning with my usual Saturday wake-up call from Western Wisconsin Sports Radio, which has me on for a few minutes in their morning football show every week to talk national scene for Division III.
I figure I listened to or tracked on live stats about a dozen of today’s games. Caught the ending of the Otterbein/Capital game as Capital had a shot from the Otterbein 35 on the final snap. Capital has got to do a better job on its crosstown rival. Joe Loth has that program headed in the right direction.
Baldwin-Wallace had me concerned — I’d been told by more than one person, including insiders, that they weren’t going to be an OAC factor this year yet they led Ohio Northern 17-0 at one point. Not for long, though.
Checked in on Mount Union about midway through the second quarter and quickly realized there wasn’t going to be any need to check back. Yikes.
Spent a lot of time listening to Alma/Wittenberg. Alma was up 17-0, Wittenberg rallied to take the lead, then Alma pulled away.
My alma mater had my blood pumping in mid-afternoon. Catholic rallied to take the lead at No. 23 McDaniel, then saw the Green Terror tie on the last play of regulation. Two overtimes later, someone finally made an extra point and McDaniel won. Catholic isn’t the best 0-3 team in the country by any stretch (hello, Wittenberg) but it will win some games.
Listened to a good amount of the Mary Hardin-Baylor/Texas Lutheran broadcast. Once I figured out which team was “we” to the broadcasters it was a lot easier. Also spent a lot of time with the Redlands/Trinity (Texas) broadcast, which I usually do with any 10 p.m. game. Thanks for the shout-out to our readers, Mitch and folks. Hope you guys get lots of free shoes and tomato sauce!
Crazy e-mail of the day
Marietta College is going to represent the OAC. How can you leave them out of the top 25. One of the top conferences in the nation. Never mind their previous history. They are for Real.
Sent from Stevens Point, Wis., where I’m guessing this person has seen a lot of Marietta football. Marietta had a nice 6-4 season last year but holding off on Top 25 consideration until they play Capital, Ohio Northern or Mount Union.
Come to think of it, didn’t Marietta coach Todd Glaser come from a WIAC school to take this job? Hmm …
Games that concern me
McDaniel/Catholic: McDaniel’s injury problems are obviously having an effect. Going to drop them on my Top 25 ballot until they show they’re healthy.
Wilkes/Delaware Valley: So Wilkes lost to William Paterson and almost beat Del Val? Which is the real Wilkes and which the real Del Val?
Ithaca/Hartwick: Although Jamie Donovan finally put up numbers worthy of the dominant running back I saw at Cortaca last year, worried about the final. Ithaca was up by 31 early in the fourth quarter, though.
UW-Whitewater/Lakeland: Man, that’s a lot of points. Save some for Oct. 1.
Keith McMillan and I will be there for that game, by the way, between UW-Eau Claire and UW-Whitewater. Looking forward to it.
A few more for you…
Thoughts on Week 3
Wins in the Rear View Mirror are less impressive than they appear: While Carthage’s offense was better against Benedictine, the nail biter against Lakeland in Week 2 is even more questionable after UW-Whitewater mashed the Muskies 73-12. To a lesser extent, Capital’s win over Wittenberg (0-3) loses a little luster with every Tigers’ defeat.
Cat Smash Fever: After dispatching UW-Stevens Point relatively easily, Linfield might not be challenged (read: win by less than 20) until the playoffs. I’m not a believer that Willamette or Whitworth is going to slow down the Brett Elliott express train to Salem.
Bogan Beating Boyd: The NEFC is split into two parts – the NEFC Bogan and Boyd with teams playing non-conference contests across the division. Through three weeks the Bogan squads have a decided advantage on their Boyd brethren, winning 8 of 11. Two-time defending NEFC champ Curry (Boyd) is now 1-2 against the Bogan after a surprising loss to Mass Maritime.
Phrase of the week: “You can’t – drop – the pecan” say the UMHB broadcasters, offering a great euphemism for taking care of the ball. Much better than my “cherish the rotten watermelon!”
The D3 poll would really be a joke if you dropped McDaniel out because they are banged up. Bottom line is so far they have shown as much guts and character as any team in the country. Down 19 on the road at Bridgewater they could have just folded but instead shut them out in the second half scoring the winning score with thier backup QB in. Now in the last game the tailback and 2nd string qb go out. Losing again they manage to comeback with the 3rd and 4th string QBs to win. No they don’t look like one of the best teams in the country but I think they earned their spot in the poll unless Bridgewater is really not that good.
The Top 25 poll doesn’t measure guts and character. 🙂
However, no, I wouldn’t advocate putting Bridgewater in the Top 25 either.
As I said — until they show they’re healthy.
One more note: UW-River Falls has thrown the ball more in its first two games (46 times, 16 completions) than it did all last year (39 attempts, 20 completions). No more wishbone, apparently.
Pat –
Way to influence the other 24 voters on McDaniel and Bridgewater 🙂
I wouldn’t want 25 people making their own decisions on certain schools, but rather, a collective one.
I highly doubt the voters read the blog before voting.
a) I don’t search for other people’s opinions (i.e. the blog) before voting. Even if any self-respecting voter did, he (or she?) wouldn’t have other people think for them. That defeats the purpose of being a voter. Most of us look at the extensive results package we are delivered each, read the game stories to determine what really happened so we’re going off more than scores (say someone was winning 35-14 and the second string gave up two late TDs … we’d want to know that 35-28 is not a true measure of how close the game was), and things like that. I could see using other people’s insights to help gauge strength since no one person can be at all the games each week, but just to be clear … I know you were kidding, kid … you can’t really be serious about this without a little bit of work, and without putting the teams you like/root for aside for a minute while you take a clear look at things.
b) I had McDaniel right on the cusp of the top 25 since the Bridgewater game (they were on the inside of the top 25 cusp). How can McDaniel not drop out after struggling to beat Catholic?
Banged up doesn’t mean you throw the results out. You vote on the teams as they are. In other words, when Hampden-Sydney lost JD Ricca for the season last year, a voter had to consider what kind of team they would be without him. You can’t really rank the team as it was … You rank the top 25 as of the day you’re voting. Even if your gut tells you a certain team will make a move later in the season, or would have if it had had a certain player healthy, or it had played in dry weather or not rain … I don’t know about the other guys, but I can’t see a reason I should be voting on those kind of hypotheticals.
The only kind of hypothetical I really see as legit is something like “Okay Monmouth is 9-1 but lost 55-19 to St. Norbert, which lost 41-9 to UW-Whitewater, so no way I could see Monmouth beating (or being ranked ahead of) Whitewater.”
It would help a lot of people to understand that a top 25 out of 231 is a really small group, equivalent to having a top 13 in D I-A (12.87 technically). Each week there are 40-50 teams that you have to consider for the top 25, and the slighest fluctuation … even due to someone being banged up, can move people up or down your list. Also, I think it’s important to weight games either equally, or what-have-you-done-for-me lately. To each his own on that, but in the case of McDaniel, when there’s only one week of source material for you to base your vote on, a 19-point comeback against a perennial playoff team looks great. But as the season goes on, you have more games to form a more complete picture, plus wins and losses of those teams that a certain team beat or did not beat to help fill things out.
Wow. I never write short.
K-Mack, I would consider the previous posting more erudition than verbosity.
The ASC is wild, and I am looking forward to Bonzo’s (Ron Boerger’s) Around the Region for this week.
First the SCAC. Which Trinity will show up against DePauw? They have not been too convincing in any game. Did Austin College really hold them to only 14 points?
Did Trinity use “2nd game” advantage to defeat a tough TLU who was opening the season on the road?
Maybe it really is 2 TD’s for HFA between the SCIAC and San Antonio and TU is that much stronger than Redlands.
In the ASC, what odds would you have given for McMurry and Sul Ross State to be unbeaten after 2 games?
TLU went on the road to play UMHB tough, but lost by that same TD margin. They get to open at home against McMurry this Saturday night.
HSU’s depth showed up at the QB.
In the middle of the pack, how good are ETBU, HPU and LaCollege? Mississippi College, who lost its opener to Katrina, had a long road trip. I thnk that it showed, too. Which Austin College will show up this week versus ETBU?
Finally, how good is Huntingdon? Coach Turk seems to have found something. I maintain that Small College football will come alive in the South. Shorter College, NAIA in Rome GA is getting good press. LaGrange is adding next year. Huntingdon should be fun to watch. With 2 daughters in Alabama, I understand Auburn’s (and that other SEC team’s) brand of football in the state. However, D3 is lots of fun. The Hawks are on my Pool B watch. We see what happens when they play TU.
Hey Ralph, I think you just wrote my column for me. I’ll give you a byline 🙂
No Bonzo, I just laid some questions as one of your interested readers. You’re the expert here!
Pontificate!
How is a team who struggled to beat redlands ranked #13 (13 spots ahead of Whitworth)?
Wasn’t the Whitworth/Redlands game a one-score game midway through the third quarter? Oh, and wasn’t Whitworth playing at home, and Trinity on the road?
yeah after it had been a three score game going into halftime, and oh yeah, it ended up being a two score game for the remainder of the game (basically the drive after Redlands scored their second touchdown. Oh, and neither weather, nor the playing surface at whitworth would have affected redlands. The only thing that could have made a difference was flying, but they got there a day early for a walkthrough and to get some rest. Still, how does what you said, although twisted to make it sound like the whitworth redlands game was closer than it really was, justify trinity being ranked 13 and whitworth 26?
I guess Whitworth should play all of its games on the road, then, if home-field advantage is so negligible.
You can’t gloss over home field, especially not when there’s an air flight involved. Whitworth is getting its due, believe me. After all, they are 26th in our poll. Have you found where Whitworth sits in the AFCA poll yet? I’ll give you a hint — it’s 19 spots further down. Go complain to the AFCA for a while instead.